There were numerous celebrities of the era at the 1973 dinner, including Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr., and Irving Berlin, who led everyone in a rendition of “God Bless America.”

For Poway’s Ben Pollard, an Air Force pilot who also spent almost six years in captivity after he was shot down in 1967, the experience was kind of a blur.

“We were in such a daze,” Pollard said. “We really didn’t know what was going on. We were all just adjusting. We just knew we were free. That’s what counted.

“While we were gone, a man went to the moon and back. The whole world had changed, and we didn’t even know about it.”

Among those attending the reunion was Brian Woods, 81, of Coronado, a Naval aviator who was shot down in September 1968 and released from captivity in February 1973. Woods was the first POW to return after the cease-fire.

Upon his arrival at Miramar on Feb. 14, 1973, he told a throng of media that the POWs were grateful, overwhelmed, proud to be Americans and proud to have served the country.

Three months later, at the White House dinner, he said he sat at a table with actress Candice Bergen.

“I’m looking forward to identifying a lot of these faces that I sat next to,” Woods said Thursday as some fellow former POWs still referred to him by his old nickname: “Bad Dog.”

“We’re all getting old. I just wish there was more time so I could talk to more of the ones I knew. But there are a lot of memories walking around here for me.”

One of the organizers of this weekend’s reunion, 75-year-old former Navy flight officer Jack Ensch, spent seven months in a prison camp. The San Diegan, who served as the director of military affairs for the Padres from 1995 until 2011, lost one of his thumbs while in captivity.

“The fact that it’s 40 years to the day of the original dinner, that’s pretty significant, I think,” Ensch said. “It’s hard to believe 40 years have gone by as quickly as they have. It gives the feeling of making good use of every day you have left.”